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Statistics chief admits errors in property data calculation

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-06 13:20

BEIJING -- China's statistics chief said Friday that there were problems with the method and system in calculating property prices and he promised new measures to correcting them.

The remarks were made by Ma Jiantang, director of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in a seminar attended by government officials, experts on property market and real estate developers.

The NBS issued the 2009 National Economic and Social Development Statistics Bulletin on February 25, which said housing prices in China's 70 major cities rose 1.5 percent in 2009 compared to 2008.

Since the release, the figure, less than a quarter of the average rise in the previous four years, and the lowest level for nine years, has been widely questioned by media and public.

Driven by record bank lending and tax breaks, China in fact saw a sharp residential property price hike in 2009, triggering heated public complaints and fears of a possible assets bubble.

"Problems do exist in the calculation method of housing prices," Ma said, while denying allegations that the data were cooked up to please the government and real estate developers.

"We will seriously reflect upon the public criticisms and take effective measures to improve our work," he said, but "there was no selfish motivation in the calculation."

The 1.5 percent figure might not fully reflect price fluctuations from month to month because it was the average level over 12 months.

China's home prices in the 70 cities climbed 7.8 percent last December from a year earlier. The rise accelerated to 9.5 percent in January 2010, the fastest growth in 19 months, according to the NBS last month.

"It is true that our figure has not authentically reflected the real conditions and feelings of the people facing increasingly unaffordable house prices," said Ma.

Due to staff shortage, housing price data mainly stemmed from reports by real estate developers, he said, citing Beijing as an example where only one or two officials were responsible for collecting data from hundreds of real estate companies.

"Under the circumstance, we have to rely on employees of property companies after giving them a short-term training," Ma said, "And some of the employees lack professionalism and a sense of responsibility."

"Property price calculation is a daunting task given China's vast area and the inherent complexity of the calculation which has to take into account such variables as which city, which section of the city and which floor the house is in, and whether the house is on the sunny side, etc," said Ma.

"However, it is incumbent on the NBS to provide reliable and accurate data for consumers and the decision makers as well. We will listen to the voices of people from all walks of life and improve the data's credibility," said Ma.

His comments met with suggestions of experts on property market and real estate developers on how to make the statistics more accurate.

The public did not really care about the annualized average data for the whole country, said Ge Haifeng, deputy general manager of the data information center of the China Index Academy, which is affiliated with SouFun.com, a leading real estate website.

Ge suggested the authorities provide a range of figures in accordance with the types of the housing, like, villas, affordable houses, and ordinary commercial apartments.

"The data should be calculated on a smaller regional basis, like, price changes in (Beijing's) Chaoyang district," Ge said.

"More data should be provided on a monthly or quarterly basis as annualized figures mean little to prospective home buyers," said Xiao Jin, sales director of the Beijing branch of Vanke, China's largest real estate company.

Distorted data would come as many data collectors tended to base the price reports on the opening prices of a new building, and because the prices kept changing, it would be time-consuming to work out the weighted average over a period, said Chen Zhi, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing Real Estate Society.

Pan Shiyi, chairman of SOHO China Ltd, a major Chinese developer, pointed to the real estate transaction net, under local housing authorities, where each property deal is registered after the signing of contract, as a reliable data source.

However, as only about 40 of the 70 major cities had such transaction nets, other ways needed to be found in the short term, said Ge.